last the Danforths' cook raised the screen.

"What are ye doing?" said she. "Come in. The baby's food is here
already."

What could I say? How could I avoid going? There was no way. But the
Judge had not found the locket. Nor had I.

But the Judge had other worries, I'm telling you. He feared the news of
the fire would reach his wife in some wrong way and he telegraphed her.
She answered by saying she was leaving for home. Brave woman that she
was! The telegram said, "It is worth the fire to feel the leap of the
heart when I know that you all were saved for me."

"Will she ever know?" he whispered, staring down at the laughing baby,
with its little pink, curved mouth. "Will she ever know? I did this for
her. God, tell me if I was right!"

"Be easy, sir," I said to him. "Have no fear. There is no one in the
world but you and me can tell the story of last night. After these weeks
and weeks your wife has been away, there is nobody but me or you who can
say this child is not--"

"Julianna," he choked.

"Yes, sir," said I.

I was right. What it cost the Judge's soul I do not know. But that the
lie he acted in the name of love was not discovered by the thin woman
and wife, whose only beauty was in the light of her eyes, I know very
well. The years that she lived--it was after we all came to this city,
when the Judge took his new office--were happy enough years for her.
Rare enough is the brand of devotion he gave to her; rare enough was the
beauty and sweetness of the girl that grew up calling her "Mother."

In all that time never a word did he say to me of what only he and I
knew, and I have often thought of what faith he must have had in human
goodness--what full, unchanging, constant, noble faith--to trust a
servant the way he seemed to trust me by his silence. I have believed
ever since that no man or animal can long be mean of soul under the
terrible presence of kindness and confidence. For all the trickery that
the inherited character of my mother and that Madame Welstoke had poured
into my nature was driven bit by bit out of my heart by the trust the
Judge put in me, and his looking upon me as a good and honest woman.
Long before my love for Julianna had grown strong, I knew that I never
could bring myself to use my knowledge of the Judge's secret to wring
money from him, or in fact for any other purpose than to feel sorrow for
what his fear of the future must have made him suffer.

I knew well enough how